What about ‘budtender’: Did Oxford miss out on the true Word of the Year?

Yes, vaping is all the rage — in Colorado and beyond. E-cigarettes are wildly popular, but vape pens and vaporizers used to ingest marijuana are what really pushed the word “vape” over the threshold — and into the coveted spot as Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year 2014.

But what about runner-up word “budtender” — which made the shortlist for Word of the Year. Should “budtender” have won this race, especially given the recent passage of recreational marijuana laws in Oregon, Alaska and Washington D.C.?

Budtender — Like a bartender (or a pharmacist), except for weed. This is the person who works the counter at your local dispensary, whose job it is to offer suggestions, answer questions and showcase a shop’s products to customers. A common variation of budtender is “boobtender,” a derogatory term which means: “an attractive female who was hired solely to cater to the highly-competitive 18-35 male demographic with her looks rather than her deep knowledge of the nuances between Bubba Kush and Master Kush.”

• “I went into that shop and their budtenders were all clueless… they kept recommending Durban Poison as a nighttime strain.”

How “budtender” made the Oxford shortlist:

“The use and sale of cannabis is illegal under US federal law, but in the late 1990s, various states began to legalize medical use of the drug, and in 2012 Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational use, joined in November 2014 by Alaska and Oregon. These changes in the law have led to changes in the lexicon; one new word that has arisen in US English is budtender, from bud (slang for marijuana) + tender (as in bartender). While not yet a familiar term in the general vocabulary of English, it is a widely recognized designation within the legal cannabis industry.”

Did Oxford miss out on leading the charge with “budtender” — as opposed to grabbing the tail of the “vape” comet?

Ricardo Baca is a contributing editor for The Cannabist. He was appointed The Denver Post's first marijuana editor in November 2013 and spearheaded the formation of The Cannabist, a division of the Post. Fortune magazine ranked Baca as one of the...